Cold Steel (Spiritwalker #3) by Kate Elliott

Cold Steel is the last book in the Spiritwalker trilogy. Those who have read Cold Magic and Cold Fire are by now well acquainted with the alternate earth imagined by Kate Elliot. In her world, the Roman Empire is still in existence and people live in a feudal state with Princes and Mage houses controlling them.  People are extremely aware of the spirit world, which once a year unleashes the wild hunt to gather the souls of those who are going to die in the following year.  Nothing is stable in this world, as the people are trying to overthrow the regimes which rule them. Cat, the protagonist, must not only deal with the political upheaval and war but the legacy of her heritage as the daughter of the Master of the Hunt.

Like all novels in this trilogy, I firmly believe that Elliot could easily have dropped 100-150 pages and not lost a thing in terms of the story.  I often found myself wishing that she would just get to the point.  It also felt very disconnected, as the characters were repeatedly presented with problems to over come and then quickly did so, only to then be thrown into yet another issue.  These problems didn't really seem to connect and it felt like we moved from one action scene to another.

One of the things I love about this series is the fact that nearly all of the character are multi-racial in some form.  As a person of colour, I am used to seeing myself erased in science fiction and to see Elliot's passion for including us really did present me with some hope. This inclusion however did not extend to GLBT people, which while normal, is never acceptable.  We were introduced to a disabled character but because of her relative youth, she was never actively a part of the major plot and instead served to bind Vai to the Mansa. It was however encouraging to see Cat advocate that she should get a proper cane as befitting her size, as well as an education. 

Magically Diverse, Humanly Erased

One thing we love in most Urban Fantasy is a rich world. I have to say that they’re my favourite kind - maybe I’m jaded, maybe I’m greedy, but vampires alone just don’t do it for me any more. I love A world that has a vast range of creatures in it - it has vampires, it has fae, it has magic, it has werecreatures, it has demons and angels and all variety of things that go bump in the night. We have different realms, we have creatures drawn from every corner of the world’s mythology - and it makes for truly excellent worlds and stories. These diverse worlds are great to read, great to watch and among some of our favourite Urban Fantasy products.

Unfortunately, it does make something glaring - we have these worlds with this vast diversity of monsters, but the humans within these stories are anything but diverse. We have these homogeneous worlds lacking in more than a token appearance of POC or GBLT people or other marginalised people. We can have this vast portrayal of every kind of creature imaginable - but only ever one or two kind of people

We see several extremely rich worlds that have, at best, only the slightest of minor tokens. Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files has an amazingly diverse world. We have three vast and very different courts of vampires, we have several variations on werewolves. We have the warring Summer and Winter courts of the fae and the vast diversity within each. We have wizards, we have demons (several kinds again) we have an incredibly rich world here. And we have, at best, token, brief appearances of POC and no GBLT characters at all. This Chicago is magically diverse yet incredibly homogeneous.

Speaking of Chicago - Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires also have a growing diversity of creatures - vampires, wizards, river nymphs, sirens, wereanimals - it’s all there, each more fascinating then the last. The people, however? As straight and white as they possibly can be.

I absolutely loved the succubus series by Richelle Mead.  I loved that it had a large world that included many supernatural creatures but it did not escape my notice that Mead could not be arsed to even attempt inclusion.  All the characters were White, straight, cis gendered and able bodied.  So much imagination had to go into writing lines for a succubus who was friends with demons, vampires and an imp.  At times it felt like the large supernatural cast was meant to cover for the lack of diversity in the series itself.  

Last year we coined the term the Marginalised Maris. One of the ways in which authors attempt to allude to diversity is by talking about a marginalized character without ever really introducing the character to the audience.  A perfect example of this is the Anna Strong Series by Jeanne C. Stein.  Stein went to great care to create an extremely diverse word which includes, several forms of shape shifters, vampires, witches etc., but manages to do in an all straight, white, cis world. In, The Becoming, we are told about Michael, Anna’s gay best friend.  The only thing we learn about him is that he has been gay bashed. He never becomes a part of the story, he exists solely as a cheap reference for some quick GLBT inclusion.  Stein was far more interested in creating a diverse cast o supernatural creatures than having a diverse cast of marginalized human beings. 

Review of Cold Fire by Kate Elliot Book Two of the Spiritwalker Trilogy

 

Cold Fire continues the story of  Catherine Bell Barahal, right where Cold Magic ended. One would assume that because Cold Magic included such massive amounts of world building that Cold Fire would delve right into the story, but that is not the case.  For a good 130 pages, the book just droned on.  I am starting to wonder what Elliott has against the beginning of her novels. I once again considered giving the novel a DNF, and it is only because I remembered that Cold Fire was extremely slow to start that I continued on. Once again, Elliot ignored the adage of show, not tell. 

Cat is taken the spirit world and emerges in the Antilles. This shifts the story from Europa to the West Indies.  I really liked that Elliot went out of her way to be authentic in both speech patterns and the food that they consumed, but I will say the amount of rum did seem excessive at times.  This was a wonderful shift because far too often, these stories are set in Europe and have a very Eurocentric perspective or the cultures of colour are thin and show an obvious lack of resource. 

As with Cold Magic, there is a class struggle going on.  The poor want the right to have a say in their government and as to be expected, the ruling classes wish to continue to have their rule unchallenged.  The rule of law is not evenly applied, and those with power are able to avoid things like imprisonment on salt island. In the north, cold mages who work in houses control the government, but in the south, fire mages are the main elemental power.  It is illegal to be an unregistered mage and because they have been so restricted, many are unaware of their capabilities. Into this word enters Andevai a cold mage from the north and Cats husband through an arranged marriage.  There is also the issue of general Camjiata who is attempting to rebuild his army to invade Europa.  Unfortunately for Cat and Bee, they play a large roll in his plans.

Review of Cold Magic by Kate Elliot Book One of the Spiritwalker Trilogy

Cold Magic is the first book in the Spiritwalker trilogy.  As with all new books in a series, it is necessary to do some world building to properly set the story for a reader.  Unfortunately, Elliott's approach was heavy handed and boring, because she ignored the adage of show and not tell.  At times it felt like being immersed in a history lesson about people, wars, and countries that as a reader, I could care less about.  Approximately, the first 100 pages is dedicated to world building and this makes the story exceedingly boring to read. At one point, I was tempted to put the book down, and simply give it a DNF.  It should not take 100 pages to begin telling a story.

Cold Magic is a steampunk novel in which magic and technology are clearly at war with each other.  The cold mages demand patronage of the people for protection and in return, the people are virtually enslaved and must exchange their labour.  Technology holds the promise of freedom from the oppressors.  The people seek voting rights as they were formed in ancient Rome as well as the ability to profit from their own labour.  There are far too many clans to list in this review and they are often difficult to remember as one reads the story.

For all of their belief in technology, the people are very spiritual.  Beneath the world that is readily visible is another realm of magic.  In this realm a dragon dreams and these dreams effect the faith of the waking world.  Fantastical creatures exist there whose purpose is as of yet unexplained.

In this world lives Catherine Bell Barahal and her beloved cousin Bee. They are both believe that that they are the descendants of the Hassi Barahal clan.  The Hassi Barahal's began as messengers but quickly became spies.  When the populace attempted to over throw the cruel rule of the cold mages led by Camjiata the rebellion was crushed placing the Hassi Barahal family in grave danger because of the potential of their activities becoming public knowledge and so a deal was struck whereby the eldest daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan would be forced to marry a cold mage of the four moon house before the age of majority.  Days before reaching the age of majority,  Andevai, an incredibly strong cold mage arrives to claim her.  Catherine is whisked from the home of the only family she has ever known and married off in a ceremony that binds her to Andevai using unbreakable magic.

Fangs for the Fantasy podcast, episode 43

This week we examined the lastest episodes of The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, Lost Girl and American Horror Story

We examined our book of the week: Cold Fire by Kate Elliott, as well as the books we're reading including JR Ward, DB Reynolds. We also mentioned Charlaine Harris and infamous Teagarden series. Next week we will be reading My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland